


We'll Huff and We'll Puff and We'll Run All Night

by Tozette



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azkaban, Dementors, Gen, Mild depression feels, Snape is just as much of a dick here as he is in canon, breaking out of azkaban, lycanthropy, written on my phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Full moons are the only times he really remembers Remus these days. These are not happy memories. They cannot be stolen. </p><p> </p><p>[Remus steals Sirius from Azkaban. It's sort of an accident.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Huff and We'll Puff and We'll Run All Night

Sirius closes his eyes against the howling of wolves. Werewolves are common in Azkaban and easy transformations are very much not. They're locked in their cells like anyone else, and they spend the night hurling themselves at the bars, howling for blood. Any blood -- even dementor blood, which is watery grey and poisonous, even to a werewolf. 

The screaming, shrieking, howling, scraping and rattling gives him a headache, and Sirius usually spends the full moon in human shape where his ears are much less sensitive, but the dementors are impacting him more and more lately. 

Full moons are the only times he really remembers Remus these days. These are not happy memories. They cannot be stolen. 

...It probably says something, really, that Remus has to transform into a slavering murderbeast to make him an unhappy memory for Sirius. 

"Awoow," says a voice, soft and mournful. Sirius cracks one canine eye open to glance up at the unexpected sound. 

It's a werewolf. But it's not throwing a tantrum or screaming for blood. It's not caught up in the vile burning of lycanthropy, turning on itself in the absence of other humans -- it just looks like a huge, damp, ragged... werewolf. 

And Sirius struggles to hold onto the idea but he recognises it. 

He _knows_ that wolf. 

It's a good thing that he's Padfoot right now, because human emotions and motives are very complicated and he'd probably do something stupid. Again. 

"Woo," says the wolf again, edging closer. 

Sirius looks from the wolf to the bars and the moonlight in long strips on the ground and--

\--he wriggles his skinny body through the bars. It's easy. 

Remus-the-wolf noses his chin, but that's it for small talk. 

The dementors are blind to them, confused by their smaller and simpler feelings and swamped beneath the cacophony of untreated werewolves howling. 

They swim to shore, run uphill through trees. Remus-the-wolf rips into a nest of birds, tossing choice pieces down to Sirius. It's not what he'd choose to eat, uncooked fowl. But when they move on both of their muzzles are bloodied. 

By the time dawn comes they're far from civilisation. 

Remus-the-wolf seems to wait until the last possible moment to let the sunrise take him. It's not as harsh as his usual transformations - he seems almost sedated for the bone-breaking, joint-popping worst of it. 

Sirius doesn't turn back. He flops himself across the biggest part of Remus's torso. It's not very big. Too skinny, too worn. Sirius sniffs unhappily. Werewolves live hard, short lives. 

They'll need a nap, at the very least, because Sirius is weak and the transformation takes a lot out of Remus, and then... 

Well. They'll make that decision when they get there. 

Only Sirius is pretty sure they shouldn't let him make it. He isn't good at big decisions. Maybe it'll be okay if they make it together. 

He noses his face under Remus's arm to block out the light. 

* * * 

Remus wakes up and he isn't sure what possessed him-- 

Well, no, actually, he knows exactly what possessed him. Wolfsbane stops the curse taking hold while he's in animal form, but it doesn't actually stop him from _being a wolf._

Wolves have a very simplistic view of morality, and it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. The wolf part, at its quietest after a full moon, is still baffled that daylight makes it all seem so much more complicated. A host of hideous soul-sucking monsters were imprisoning his pack-mate, so it makes perfect sense that the wolf visited to hamstring them and/or kill them - or in this case distract and evade them - then pick up his pack-mate and leave with tails all a-wag. 

Remus would not be the first werewolf to do something ill-conceived under the influence, even using the wolfsbane potion. 

Remus sighs, cracks his aching joints and staggers to his feet. The sun is weak but out, and from its position in the sky he thinks it's probably midmorning. 

Around them are evergreens, towering, dark and pretty, and the world smells of wet soil and pine. Birds chirp, high and twittering, although they seem oddly distant -- Remus's vision always seems sharper and his hearing poorer when he transforms back to human. And his nose... if humans smell in hazy black and white; by comparison the wolf smells in sharp technicolour. 

He toes Sirius, who definitely woke when he got up and is now absolutely pretending to sleep. "Padfoot," he says, prodding him again. 

Remus is barefoot, but the transformation let him keep his shirt and trousers this time. He has no notion of where his clothes go when he transforms, but sometimes they come back with his body and sometimes they don't. The vagaries of magic, he supposes. 

(He's met one werewolf who only ever gets to keep her underthings. She'd shown him a collection of brassieres which was presumably quite impressive, eager to share with another werewolf. Remus is no expert on women's undergarments, but the point is: magic is sometimes very strange.) 

He toes Sirius again. "Padf-- ouch. That wasn't necessary." Sirius's teeth are certainly sharper than the tiny nip on his toes indicates, of course. 

He lifts one ear and growls at Remus. One eye cracks open. 

"You have blood on your face," Remus says blandly, and that gets him moving, if only to scrub at his muzzle with his paws. It's one thing for a werewolf to murder cute animals and eat them, but an animagus is usually held to higher standards. 

He squints at the sun, trying to tell where north and east are, with some success. Remembering where he left his wand takes a moment longer. "I'm fairly certain we're still near Millham," he says finally, although 'fairly certain' is not at all the same as 'actually certain,' so it's well that they get a move on as soon as possible. 

Sirius makes a doggy whine but he gets to his paws and Remus leads the way. His prediction’s more or less right, although they’re several kilometers out of the little village. It’s a muggle one, with a grand total of one wizard in the area. 

Remus points out his place, a sweet stone cottage at the far end of an unpaved road on the edge of town. 

“He’s almost a squib,” Remus explains, “but he makes a mean Pepper-Up and he’s got some skill with divination, of all things. There’s a centaur herd further north, says he visits them sometimes.” 

Sirius huffs noisily, indicating exactly what he thinks of all that. 

Remus shrugs uncomfortably. He’s not as dismissive as Sirius, but he’s not sure he wants Sirius to know that. It’s just... the hedgerows are neat and green, even in this morning’s unenthusiastic sunshine, flowering outside the low gate. It’s a picturesque sort of place: tucked away, simple, unbothered by the movement of the world around it. 

But skint lycanthropes don’t get picturesque countryside cottages.

And Remus has work to do. 

He blinks away. “Right, well, my things’re in the mill. Are you coming? You can change there,” he adds. 

The river’s a little one, pleasant and swift, and at its curve there’s a water mill that’s been standing for centuries. It’s old-fashioned, only as complicated as an undershot water wheel and huge toothed gears need to be. Inside is all cold in the shade, but the sandy-coloured wood and iron and brass are dry, and the wind off the river doesn’t bite if he positions himself carefully. Leaving his things here serves several purposes -- one, most pragmatically, the mill is deserted. It’s not like anybody mills their flour here anymore. But two, it’s also set right on the running water, which makes it perfect for disrupting magic. 

Remus doesn’t think anybody’s tracking him, but he’s sure they’ll be tracking Sirius once the dementors do a head count and realise they’re one down. A building that juts out over the river is a good place to lay low for the night if they have to. 

He’s got a spare change of clothes and his wand stashed here, where he'd planned to spend the night. He should have known it was too close to Azkaban, but he can't bring himself to regret it that badly. 

While Remus is busy putting on his socks Sirius becomes human and then sprawls dramatically across the wooden floor. 

“Everything feels _warm_ ,” he says deliriously, arching into the old floorboards as though they’re the nicest thing he’s felt in years. 

“It’s not warm." Remus for one is freezing. He wriggles his toes under Sirius’s thigh but he’s not particularly warm either. A second later he gives it up and fishes around for his second sock. “Maybe it’s from coming out of Azkaban? Dementors cause localised cold.” 

“Maybe,” says Sirius, sounding unconcerned at best. 

Sirius looks like something the cat dragged in. He’s unshaven, shaggy, dirty, miles too skinny and sort of unhinged looking. He’s dressed in prisoners’ rags. His feet are bare, too, which is unfortunate because having lost his own, Remus only has the one pair of shoes. He puts them on without asking. Sirius can walk on paws -- he’ll need to, anyway, because he’ll need to lay low after that breakout. His face will be plastered across every wizarding establishment in the country. 

“Why’d you come get me?” Sirius asks then, and Remus opens his mouth to point out that wolves aren't known for their impulse control. Sirius predicts him and waves a hand. "Something must have changed your mind." 

He says it without rancour -- or even inflection, really -- but Remus hesitates. Winces. His response to Sirius's arrest had been... intense, is probably the kindest way of putting it. He'd believed Sirius's muddled confession, believed Peter's death-- 

Remus’s mind is ticking a mile a minute, thoughts careening into one another and chasing their tails. The wolf is at its least prominent just after the full moon, and he’s as human as he ever can be. He thinks too much and second guesses himself. 

“They found Peter." He says finally, thinking it better to stick to facts and not confuse the matter. "Snape, of all people. Confiscated a rat off an eleven year old boy.” Because _of course_ he had -- confiscated and poisoned it, in fact, as a class demonstration. What the vile bastard thought he was demonstrating remains utterly mysterious to Remus. The rat had not responded as expected, and Snape's also a _suspicious_ bastard, so--

So it's Snape who found him. 

“Snape.” And then Sirius's voice catches and for a second it seems like he's going to cry -- but instead he laughs and laughs. 

Remus looks at him impassively for a second. Finally a tiny smile curls his lips, wry and a bit worn. He’s tired. Too tired to poke fun at Sirius, did he ever think he’d see the day? 

_“Snape!”_ Sirius yells again, delighted and angry in equal measure. And then once he starts laughing he can’t stop, until he’s laying there gasping with heaving exhales that make him sound like a broken hinge. 

It takes a long time before he stops, and in the end it sounds more like sobbing. Not bad sobbing, Remus thinks. Maybe. Just... sobbing. Overwhelmed. 

Then there’s silence. 

He wonders how Sirius is going to take the news that once caught, Peter escaped when the aurors came to question him. Not well, he thinks. Not well at all. Certainly worse than Snape, and that had been a tantrum to sell tickets to. He’ll tell him later, he thinks, a cowardly little thought. 

“You could have gotten out on your own,” Remus says finally because he could have, but he didn’t. Sirius has been living trapped and surrounded by monsters, forced to relive his worst moments over and over, and for years he’s stayed. He’s stayed. 

Sirius makes a noise, like he‘s trying to acknowledge Remus and not answer at the same time. 

“Sirius,” Remus prompts. It’s important. He knows it in his gut, in his bones, with pricked ears. He knows it like he knows when the moon is rising. 

“Give it a rest, Moony,” Sirius sighs, closing his eyes. 

Remus just rubs his hands over his face. “Okay,” he says, and there’s silence for a few moments while he gets his shoes on and shoves his wand in his pocket. 

But it's not like Remus can't read between the lines. He knows Sirius well, too. That's bad, that non-answer. Remus starts casting madly around for something to distract Sirius from whatever's going on inside his head. _Not_ catching Peter -- that's what he wanted, it was Remus's plan, but he gives it up easily. Peter will keep, and it sounds like Sirius, who is infinitely more important, may not. 

(That hunt can wait. There's nowhere Peter can hide that Remus won't find him, in the end.

In some things, it is impossible to take the wolf out of the man. This is one of them.) 

He feels like somebody’s mother when he opens his mouth again, like he’s nagging and forcing Sirius to stop living in the moment and start contemplating practicalities. It is more nostalgic than really novel. “You’ll need to be Padfoot for a while, I think," he says decisively. 

“Mm?”

“You’ll be recognised otherwise, where we’re going.” 

“And where’s that?” He sounds more like he's humouring Remus than like he's actually interested. 

"Surrey, Padfoot." Remus smiles then, and Sirius remains tired and unimpressed. "I thought we should go and meet Harry." 

Sirius blinks. It takes him a few long seconds, but then he seems contemplative rather than bored or exhausted. Interest glimmers deep and hidden behind his tired eyes. 

"A boy should get to know his godfather, I suppose," Sirius agrees slowly. 

And Remus smiles, tired but satisfied. 


End file.
